Communities of Crossed, trying to establish a sutainable living, or at least a better-than-bare-subsistence living? Focusing on more important things than going out of their way to hunt humans?

The possibility of "tribes" of Crossed? Some warlike, some comparatively stable, but all equally anti-human? Scary.

The human race is well and truly fucked if so. Humanity just became an endagered species, or at least a powerless permanent minority.

Another thing... the possibility of being a Crossed, but NOT enduring a life of rape/kill/hunt? The possibility of an eventual productive existence among your own kind, once the initial brain siezure of the change wears off...? Of living a life comparatively normal, but free of the shackles of civilization...?

That look on Jackson's face... pure horror... not of the Crossed... but at the prospect of livivng within the confines of other people... giving up his freedom...

Hard to say more than a few people wouldn't choose the other path... more than we would like to admit.

"Running off" is both an indication of clear thinking and self-preservation. We've seen organized Crossed before, but they've NEVER run from a fight. And a group that will avoid a fight will survive the winter.

Maybe they have just learned to be frightened/wary of Jackson. As for the Crossed changing as time goes on, as said above there has been evidence before of some organisation/direction with the crossed (Horsecock and his crew from the original series springs to mind) but I cant see that there are going to be any major changes to their rape/fuck/kill credo.

I am seriously intrigued. One thing that strikes me as a recurring theme in the story is that the Crossed are having to work harder to get their kicks. Maybe now there's no more chance of big, easy orgies, some of them are getting wise to the concept of delayed gratification. Could be that some of them are smart enough to know that they can only have their way with the islanders if they band together, bide their time, and scheme ...

Then again, Jackson is a little mad. For all we know, he could be seeing ordinary people and thinking them Crossed. Looking forward to finding out, whatever the case may be.

Surely if you had a lot of them together in one place, they'd eventually turn on each other. If they are all Crossed then they have to have some sort of source of 'fun', or a decent recruitment pool. People have mentioned Horsecock and co from the original- bear in mind that they had their knife pits, to put people through the paces.

Then again, if they are proper slavers, why wouldn't they charge down Jackson? All very interesting; all very tantalizing, and all I want is to see and know more. :D

1: Because he's terrified of going on it and is morally certain that he'll be picked via the "lottery" method. Which is why he plans to cheat. And you know this cheating will backfire on him in some way the forces him to go on the sortie.

3: A sufficient number to allow for plenty of random horrible deaths and "new" characters without being unreasonably large. No, there hasn't been (and almost certainly won't be) a firm number given. Why not? Because there's really no storytelling need to establish an exact number. Also, it avoid having to deal with

[ObsessivelyAnalFan} Hey, Si, you established that there were exactly 53 people an Cava! Well, I have no life so I went back and counted up all the character deaths and crowd scenes and there's at least 66. What's going on?!?[/ObsessivelyAnalFan]

3: Actually, there were (IIRC) 24 souls on Cava at the start of the series. Can't remember if that included the kid who dies in ep 1, or the Masouds' baby. I've also lost track of how many we've lost so far, but all these characters were designed well in advance of the series, and they'll all be featured in the skipweek notes as they get rolled-out. I imagine they'll be in the tpb too.

Yeah, the one flaw of the whole Crossed concept is how the hell they stay alive longer than the few weeks that the local Asda, farm stock, wildlife and remaining population would provide nourishment, especially in frail human bodies that've been raised with immune systems dented by advert-guilt induced OCD Mums obsessed with Milton steriliser.

Unless it's simply moving across populations and wiping them out, but with a vector usually remaining to take it to the next place, and everyone, Crossed or not, is simply dead in much of the world that it's arrived in already.

But, I dunno, something like Crossed Brussels Sprout farms would probably solve this problem and also be symbolic of true evil and debauchery as well.

Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying this series yet? If not, this is by far one of the best horror comics I've read. Most horror takes place over a couple hours or days, sometimes even weeks, but there's not a lot that covers having to live the rest of one's life with such a bleak and hopeless situation. This story effortlessly switches from low to high gear and back again, but never lets up, and remains believable in its characters the whole while. Fantastic stuff!

This is my favorite of the Crossed series thus far. The characters ring true, especially the blowhards who endlessly debate the nuances of the sortie. Best of all, a flawed protagonist who is not all that likable. Shaky may be the everyman, and most likely behaves as most would in such horrific circumstances, but he is a milksop douche too. I cannot wait for chapter 15!

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